AN OVERVIEW OF CENTRAL CONCERNS:

Transcription

1 Chapter 2 AN OVERVIEW OF CENTRAL CONCERNS: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS John Piper and Wayne Grudem This chapter offers an overview of the vision of manhood and womanhood presented in this book with cogent summary responses to the most common objections. Because every effort to answer one question (on this or any important issue) begets new questions, the list of questions here is not exhaustive. Nonetheless, we hope to give enough trajectories that readers can track the flight of our intention to its appointed target: the good of the church, global mission, and the glory of God. 1. Why do you regard the issue of male and female roles as so important? We are concerned not merely with the behavioral roles of men and women but also with the underlying nature of manhood and womanhood themselves. Biblical truth and clarity in this matter are important because error and confusion over sexual identity leads to: (1) marriage patterns that do not portray the relationship between Christ and the church 1 (Ephesians 5:31-32); (2) parenting practices that do not train boys to be masculine or girls to be feminine; (3) homosexual tendencies and increasing attempts to justify homosexual alliances (see question 41); (4) patterns of unbiblical female leadership in the church that reflect and promote the confusion over the true meaning of manhood and womanhood. God s gift of complementary manhood and womanhood was exhilarating from the beginning (Genesis 2:23). It is precious beyond estimation. But today it is esteemed lightly and is vanishing like the rain forests we need but don t love. We believe that what is at stake in human sexuality is the very fabric of life as God wills it to be for the holiness of His people and for their saving mission to the world. (See the Rationale of the Danvers Statement in Appendix Two.) 2. What do you mean (in question 1) by unbiblical female leadership in the church? We are persuaded that the Bible teaches that only men should be pastors and elders. That is, men should bear primary responsibility for Christlike leadership and teaching in the church. So it is unbiblical, we believe, and therefore detrimental, for women to assume this role. (See question 13.) 3. Where in the Bible do you get the idea that only men should be the pastors and elders of the church? The most explicit texts relating directly to the leadership of men in the church are 1 Timothy 2:11-15; 1 Corinthians 14:34-36; 11:2-16. The chapters in this book on these texts will give the detailed exegetical support for why we believe these texts give abiding sanction to an eldership of spiritual men. Moreover, the Biblical connection between family and church strongly suggests that the headship of the husband at home leads naturally to the primary leadership of spiritual men in the church. (See Chapter 13.) 4. What about marriage? What did you mean (in question 1) by marriage patterns that do not portray the relationship between Christ and the church? We believe the Bible teaches that God means the relationship between husband and wife to portray the relationship between Christ and His church. The husband is to model the loving, sacrificial leadership of Christ, and the wife is to model the glad submission offered freely by the church. 5. What do you mean by submission (in question 4)? Submission refers to a wife s divine calling to honor and affirm her husband s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. It is not an absolute surrender 56

2 of her will. Rather, we speak of her disposition to yield to her husband s guidance and her inclination to follow his leadership. (See pages 46-49) Christ is her absolute authority, not the husband. She submits out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21). The supreme authority of Christ qualifies the authority of her husband. She should never follow her husband into sin. Nevertheless, even when she may have to stand with Christ against the sinful will of her husband (e.g., 1 Peter 3:1, where she does not yield to her husband s unbelief), she can still have a spirit of submission-a disposition to yield. She can show by her attitude and behavior that she does not like resisting his will and that she longs for him to forsake sin and lead in righteousness so that her disposition to honor him as head can again produce harmony. 6. What do you mean when you call the husband head (in question 5)? In the home, Biblical headship is the husband s divine calling to take primary responsibility for Christlike leadership, protection, and provision. (See pages on the meaning of mature manhood, and question 13 on the meaning of primary. ) 7. Where in the Bible do you get the idea that husbands should be the leaders in their homes? The most explicit texts relating directly to headship and submission in marriage are Ephesians 5:21-33; Colossians 3:18-19; 1 Peter 3:1-7; Titus 2:5; 1 Timothy 3:4, 12; Genesis 1-3. The chapters of this book relating to these texts give the detailed exegetical support for why we believe they teach that headship includes primary leadership and that this is the responsibility of the man. Moreover, in view of these teaching passages, the pattern of male leadership that pervades the Biblical portrait of family life is probably not a mere cultural phenomenon over thousands of years but reflects God s original design, even though corrupted by sin. 8. When you say a wife should not follow her husband into sin (question 5), what s left of headship? Who is to say what act of his leadership is sinful enough to justify her refusal to follow? We are not claiming to live without ambiguities. Neither are we saying that headship consists in a series of directives to the wife. Leadership is not synonymous with unilateral decision making. In fact, in a good marriage, leadership consists mainly in taking responsibility to establish a pattern of interaction that honors both husband and wife (and children) as a store of varied wisdom for family life. Headship bears the primary responsibility for the moral design and planning in the home, but the development of that design and plan will include the wife (who may be wiser and more intelligent). None of this is nullified by some ambiguities in the borderline cases of conflict. The leadership structures of state, church, and home do not become meaningless even though Christ alone is the absolute authority over each one. The New Testament command for us to submit to church leaders (Hebrews 13:17) is not meaningless even though we are told that elders will arise speaking perverse things (Acts 20:30) and should be rebuked (1 Timothy 5:20) rather than followed when they do so. The command to submit to civil authorities (Romans 13:1) is not meaningless, even though there is such a thing as conscientious objection (Acts 5:29). Nor is the reality of a man s gentle, strong leadership at home nullified just because his authority is not above Christ s in the heart of his wife. In the cases where his leadership fails to win her glad response, we will entrust ourselves to the grace of God and seek the path of Biblical wisdom through prayer and counsel. None of us escapes the (sometimes agonizing) ambiguities of real life. 9. Don t you think that stressing headship and submission gives impetus to the epidemic of wife abuse? No. First, because we stress Christlike, sacrificial headship that keeps the good of the wife in view and regards her as a joint heir of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:7); and we stress thoughtful submission that does not make the husband an absolute lord (see question 5). 57

3 Second, we believe that wife abuse (and husband abuse) have some deep roots in the failure of parents to impart to their sons and daughters the meaning of true masculinity and true femininity. The confusions and frustrations of sexual identity often explode in harmful behaviors. The solution to this is not to minimize gender differences (which will then break out in menacing ways), but to teach in the home and the church how true manhood and womanhood express themselves in the loving and complementary roles of marriage. 10. But don t you believe in mutual submission the way Paul teaches in Ephesians 5:21, Submit to one another? Yes, we do. But the way Paul teaches mutual submission is not the way everyone today teaches it. Everything depends on what you mean by mutual submission. Some of us put more stress on reciprocity here than others (see note 6 on page 493 in Chapter 8, and the discussion in Chapter 10, pages ). But even if Paul means complete reciprocity (wives submit to husbands and husbands submit to wives), this does not mean that husbands and wives should submit to each other in the same way. The key is to remember that the relationship between Christ and the church is the pattern for the relationship between husband and wife. Are Christ and the church mutually submitted? They aren t if submission means Christ yields to the authority of the church. But they are if submission means that Christ submitted Himself to suffering and death for the good of the church. That, however, is not how the church submits to Christ. The church submits to Christ by affirming His authority and following His lead. So mutual submission does not mean submitting to each other in the same ways. Therefore, mutual submission does not compromise Christ s headship over the church and it should not compromise the headship of a godly husband. 11. If head means source in Ephesians 5:23 ( the husband is the head of the wife ), as some scholars say it does, wouldn t that change your whole way of seeing this passage and eliminate the idea of the husband s leadership in the home? No. But before we deal with this hypothetical possibility we should say that the meaning source in Ephesians 5:23 is very unlikely. Scholars will want to read the extensive treatment of this word in Appendix One. But realistically, lay people will make their choice on the basis of what makes sense here in Ephesians. Verse 23 is the ground, or argument, for verse 22; thus it begins with the word for. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife.... When the headship of the husband is given as the ground for the submission of the wife, the most natural understanding is that headship signifies some kind of leadership. Moreover, Paul has a picture in his mind when he says that the husband is the head of the wife. The word head does not dangle in space waiting for any meaning to be assigned to it. Paul says, For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body (Ephesians 5:23). The picture in Paul s mind is of a body with a head. This is very important because it leads to the one flesh unity of husband and wife in the following verses. A head and its body are one flesh. Thus Paul goes on to say in verses 28-30, In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church-for we are members of his body. Paul carries through the image of Christ the Head and the church His body. Christ nourishes and cherishes the church because we are limbs of His body. So the husband is like a head to his wife, so that when he nourishes and cherishes her, he is really nourishing and cherishing himself, as the head who is one flesh with this body. Now, if head means source, what is the husband the source of? What does the body get from the head? It gets nourishment (that s mentioned in verse 29). And we can understand that, because the mouth is in the head, and nourishment comes through the mouth to the body. But that s not all the body gets from the head. It gets guidance, 58

4 because the eyes are in the head. And it gets alertness and protection, because the ears are in the head. In other words if the husband as head is one flesh with his wife, his body, and if he is therefore a source of guidance, food, and alertness, then the natural conclusion is that the head, the husband, has a primary responsibility for leadership, provision, and protection. So even if you give head the meaning source, the most natural interpretation of these verses is that husbands are called by God to take primary responsibility for Christlike servant-leadership, protection, and provision in the home, and wives are called to honor and affirm their husbands leadership and help carry it through according to their gifts Isn t your stress on leadership in the church and headship in the home contrary to the emphasis of Christ in Luke 22:26,... the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves? No. We are trying to hold precisely these two things in Biblical balance, namely, leadership and servanthood. It would be contrary to Christ if we said that servanthood cancels out leadership. Jesus is not dismantling leadership, He is defining it. The very word He uses for leader in Luke 22:26 is used in Hebrews 13:17, which says, Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as ones who will have to give an account. Leaders are to be servants in sacrificially caring for the souls of the people. But this does not make them less than leaders, as we see in the words obey and submit. Jesus was no less leader of the disciples when He was on His knees washing their feet than when He was giving them the Great Commission. 13. In questions 2 and 6, you said that the calling of the man is to bear primary responsibility for leadership in the church and the home. What do you mean by primary? We mean that there are levels and kinds of leadership for which women may and often should take responsibility. There are kinds of teaching, administration, organization, ministry, influence, and initiative that wives should undertake at home and women should undertake at church. Male headship at home and eldership at church mean that men bear the responsibility for the overall pattern of life. Headship does not prescribe the details of who does precisely what activity. After the fall, God called Adam to account first (Genesis 3:9). This was not because the woman bore no responsibility for sin, but because the man bore primary responsibility for life in the garden-including sin. 14. If the husband is to treat his wife as Christ does the church, does that mean he should govern all the details of her life and that she should clear all her actions with him? No. We may not press the analogy between Christ and the husband that far. Unlike Christ, all husbands sin. They are finite and fallible in their wisdom. Not only that, but also, unlike Christ, a husband is not preparing a bride merely for himself, but also for another, namely, Christ. He does not merely act as Christ, he also acts for Christ. At this point he must not be Christ to his wife, lest he be a traitor to Christ. He must lead in such a way that his wife is encouraged to depend on Christ and not on himself. Practically, that rules out belittling supervision and fastidious oversight. Even when acting as Christ, the husband must remember that Christ does not lead the church as His daughter, but as His wife. He is preparing her to be a fellow-heir, not a servant girl (Romans 8:17). Any kind of leadership that, in the name of Christlike headship, tends to foster in a wife personal immaturity or spiritual weakness or insecurity through excessive control, picky supervision, or oppressive domination has missed the point of the analogy in Ephesians 5. Christ does not create that kind of wife. 15. Don t you think that these texts are examples of temporary compromise with the patriarchal status quo, while the main thrust of Scripture is toward the leveling of genderbased role differences? 59

5 We recognize that Scripture sometimes regulates undesirable relationships without condoning them as permanent ideals. For example, Jesus said to the Pharisees, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning (Matthew 19:8). Another example is Paul s regulation of how Christians sue each other, even though [t]he very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already (1 Corinthians 6:1-8). Another example is the regulation of how Christian slaves were to relate to their masters, even though Paul longed for every slave to be received by his master no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother (Philemon 16). But we do not put the loving headship of husbands or the godly eldership of men in the same category with divorce, lawsuits, or slavery. The reason we don t is threefold: (1) Male and female personhood, with some corresponding role distinctions, is rooted in God s act of creation before the sinful distortions of the status quo were established. (See Chapters 3 and 10.) This argument is the same one, we believe, that evangelical feminists would use to defend heterosexual marriage against the (increasingly prevalent) argument that the leveling thrust of the Bible leads properly to homosexual alliances. They would say No, because the leveling thrust of the Bible is not meant to dismantle the created order of nature. That is our fundamental argument as well. (2) The redemptive thrust of the Bible does not aim at abolishing headship and submission but at transforming them for their original purposes in the created order. (3) The Bible contains no indictments of loving headship and gives no encouragements to forsake it. Therefore it is wrong to portray the Bible as overwhelmingly egalitarian with a few contextually relativized patriarchal texts. The contra-headship thrust of Scripture simply does not exist. It seems to exist only when Scripture s aim to redeem headship and submission is portrayed as undermining them. (See Question 50, for an example of this hermeneutical flaw.) 16. Aren t the arguments made to defend the exclusion of women from the pastorate today parallel to the arguments Christians made to defend slavery in the nineteenth century? See the beginning of our answer to this problem in question 15. The preservation of marriage is not parallel with the preservation of slavery. The existence of slavery is not rooted in any creation ordinance, but the existence of marriage is. Paul s regulations for how slaves and masters related to each other do not assume the goodness of the institution of slavery. Rather, seeds for slavery s dissolution were sown in Philemon 16 ( no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother ), Ephesians 6:9 ( Masters... do not threaten [your slaves] ), Colossians 4:1 ( Masters, provide your slaves what is right and fair ), and 1 Timothy 6:1-2 (masters are brothers ). Where these seeds of equality came to full flower, the very institution of slavery would no longer be slavery. But Paul s regulations for how husbands and wives relate to each other in marriage do assume the goodness of the institution of marriage-and not only its goodness but also its foundation in the will of the Creator from the beginning of time (Ephesians 5:31-32). Moreover, in locating the foundation of marriage in the will of God at creation, Paul does so in a way that shows that his regulations for marriage also flow from this order of creation. He quotes Genesis 2:24, they will become one flesh, and says, I am talking about Christ and the church. From this mystery he draws out the pattern of the relationship between the husband as head (on the analogy of Christ) and the wife as his body or flesh (on the analogy of the church) and derives the appropriateness of the husband s leadership and the wife s submission. Thus Paul s regulations concerning marriage are just as rooted in the created order as is the institution itself. This is not true of slavery. Therefore, while it is true that some slave owners in the nineteenth century 60

6 argued in ways parallel with our defense of distinct roles in marriage, the parallel was superficial and misguided. Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen points out, from 1 Timothy 6:1-6, that, according to the nineteenth-century Christian supporters of slavery, even though the institution of slavery did not go back to creation... the fact that Paul based its maintenance on a revelation from Jesus himself meant that anyone wishing to abolish slavery (or even improve the slaves working conditions) was defying timeless Biblical norms for society. 3 The problem with this argument is that Paul does not use the teachings of Jesus to maintain the institution of slavery, but to regulate the behavior of Christian slaves and masters in an institution that already existed in part because of sin. What Jesus endorses is the kind of inner freedom and love that is willing to go the extra mile in service, even when the demand is unjust (Matthew 5:41). Therefore, it is wrong to say that the words of Jesus give a foundation for slavery in the same way that creation gives a foundation for marriage. Jesus does not give any foundation for slavery, but creation gives an unshakeable foundation for marriage and its complementary roles for husband and wife. Finally, if those who ask this question are concerned to avoid the mistakes of Christians who defended slavery, we must remember the real possibility that it is not we but evangelical feminists today who resemble nineteenth century defenders of slavery in the most significant way: using arguments from the Bible to justify conformity to some very strong pressures in contemporary society (in favor of slavery then, and feminism now). 17. Since the New Testament teaching on the submission of wives in marriage is found in the part of Scripture known as the household codes (Haustafeln), which were taken over in part from first-century culture, shouldn t we recognize that what Scripture is teaching us is not to offend against current culture but to fit in with it up to a point and thus be willing to change our practices of how men and women relate, rather than hold fast to a temporary first-century pattern? This is a more sophisticated form of the kind of questions already asked in questions 15 and 16. A few additional comments may be helpful. First of all, by way of explanation, the household codes refer to Ephesians 5:22-6:9, Colossians 3:18-4:1, and less exactly 1 Peter 2:13-3:7, which include instructions for pairs of household members: wives/husbands, children/parents, and slaves/masters. Our first problem with this argument is that the parallels to these household codes in the surrounding world are not very close to what we have in the New Testament. It is not at all as though Paul simply took over either content or form from his culture. Both are very different from the nonbiblical parallels that we know of. 4 Our second problem with this argument is that it maximizes what is incidental (the little that Paul s teaching has in common with the surrounding world) and minimizes what is utterly crucial (the radically Christian nature and foundation of what Paul teaches concerning marriage in the household codes ). We have shown in questions 15 and 16 that Paul is hardly unreflective in saying some things that are superficially similar to the surrounding culture. He bases his teaching of headship on the nature of Christ s relation to the church, which he sees mysteriously revealed in Genesis 2:24 and, thus, in creation itself. We do not think that it honors the integrity of Paul or the inspiration of Scripture to claim that Paul resorted to arguing that his exhortations were rooted in the very order of creation and in the work of Christ in order to justify his sanctioning temporary accommodations to his culture. It is far more likely that the theological depth and divine inspiration of the apostle led him not only to be very discriminating in what he took over from the world but also to sanction his ethical commands with creation only where they had abiding validity. Thus we believe that there is good reason to affirm the enduring 61

7 validity of Paul s pattern for marriage: Let the husband, as head of the home, love and lead as Christ does the church, and let the wife affirm that loving leadership as the church honors Christ. 18. But what about the liberating way Jesus treated women? Doesn t He explode our hierarchical traditions and open the way for women to be given access to all ministry roles? We believe the ministry of Jesus has revolutionary implications for the way sinful men and women treat each other. [S]hould not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free...? (Luke 13:16). Everything Jesus taught and did was an attack on the pride that makes men and women belittle each other. Everything He taught and did was a summons to the humility and love that purge self-exaltation out of leadership and servility out of submission. He put man s lustful look in the category of adultery and threatened it with hell (Matthew 5:28-29). He condemned the whimsical disposing of women in divorce (Matthew 19:8). He called us to account for every careless word we utter (Matthew 12:36). He commanded that we treat each other the way we would like to be treated (Matthew 7:12). He said to the callous chief priests,... prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you (Matthew 21:31). He was accompanied by women, He taught women, and women bore witness to His resurrection life. Against every social custom that demeans or abuses men and women the words of Jesus can be applied: And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? (Matthew 15:3). But where does Jesus say or do anything that criticizes the order of creation in which men bear a primary responsibility to lead, protect, and sustain? Nothing He did calls this good order into question. It simply does not follow to say that since women ministered to Jesus and learned from Jesus and ran to tell the disciples that Jesus was risen, this must mean that Jesus opposed the loving headship of husbands or the limitation of eldership to spiritual men. We would not argue that merely because Jesus chose twelve men to be His authoritative apostles, Jesus must have favored an eldership of only men in the church. But this argument would be at least as valid as arguing that anything else Jesus did means He would oppose an eldership of all men or the headship of husbands. The effort to show that the ministry of Jesus is part of a major Biblical thrust against gender-based roles can only be sustained by assuming (rather than demonstrating) that He meant to nullify headship and submission rather than rectify them. What is clear is that Jesus radically purged leadership of pride and fear and self-exaltation and that He also radically honored women as persons worthy of the highest respect under God. 19. Doesn t the significant role women had with Paul in ministry show that his teachings do not mean that women should be excluded from ministry? Yes. But the issue is not whether women should be excluded from ministry. They shouldn t be. There are hundreds of ministries open to men and women. We must be more careful in how we pose our questions. Otherwise the truth is obscured from the start. The issue here is whether any of the women serving with Paul in ministry fulfilled roles that would be inconsistent with a limitation of the eldership to men. We believe the answer to that is No. Tom Schreiner has dealt with this matter more fully in Chapter 11. But we can perhaps illustrate with two significant women in Paul s ministry. Paul said that Euodia and Syntyche contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers (Philippians 4:2-3). There is wonderful honor given to Euodia and Syntyche here for their ministry with Paul. But there are no compelling grounds for affirming that the nature of the ministry was contrary to the limitations that we argue are set forth in 1 Timothy 2:12. One must assume this in order to make a case against these limitations. Paul would surely say that the deacons 62

8 mentioned in Philippians 1:1 along with the overseers were fellow workers with him when he was there. But if so, then one can be a fellow worker with Paul without being in a position of authority over men. (We are assuming from 1 Timothy 3:2 and 5:17 that what distinguishes an elder from a deacon is that the responsibility for teaching and governance was the elder s and not the deacon s.) Phoebe is praised as a servant or deacon of the church at Cenchreea who has been a great help [or patroness ] to many people, including me (Romans 16:1-2). Some have tried to argue that the Greek word behind help really means leader. This is doubtful, since it is hard to imagine, on any count, what Paul would mean by saying that Phoebe became his leader. 5 He could of course mean that she was an influential patroness who gave sanctuary to him and his band or that she used her community influence for the cause of the gospel and for Paul in particular. She was a very significant person and played a crucial role in the ministry. But to derive anything from this that is contrary to our understanding of 1 Timothy 2:12, one would have to assume authority over men here since it cannot be shown. 20. But Priscilla taught Apollos didn t she (Acts 18:2 6 )? And she is even mentioned before her husband Aquila. Doesn t that show that the practice of the early church did not exclude women from the teaching office of the church? We are eager to affirm Priscilla as a fellow worker with Paul in Christ (Romans 16:3)! She and her husband were very influential in the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 16:19) as well as Ephesus. We can think of many women in our churches today who are like Priscilla. Nothing in our understanding of Scripture says that when a husband and wife visit an unbeliever (or a confused believer-or anyone else) the wife must be silent. It is easy for us to imagine the dynamics of such a discussion in which Priscilla contributes to the explanation and illustration of baptism in Jesus name and the work of the Holy Spirit. Our understanding of what is fitting for men and women in that kind of setting is not an oversimplified or artificial list of rules for what the woman and man can say and do. It is rather a call for the delicate and sensitive preservation of personal dynamics that honor the headship of Aquila without squelching the wisdom and insight of Priscilla. There is nothing in this text that cannot be explained on this understanding of what happened. We do not claim to know the spirit and balance of how Priscilla and Aquila and Apollos related to each other. We only claim that a feminist reconstruction of the relationship has no more warrant than ours. The right of Priscilla to hold an authoritative teaching office cannot be built on an event about which we know so little. It is only a guess to suggest that the order of their names signifies Priscilla s leadership. Luke may simply have wanted to give greater honor to the woman by putting her name first (1 Peter 3:7), or may have had another reason unknown to us. Saying that Priscilla illustrates the authoritative teaching of women in the New Testament is the kind of precarious and unwarranted inference that is made again and again by evangelical feminists and then called a major Biblical thrust against gender-based role distinctions. But many invalid inferences do not make a major thrust. 21. Are you saying that it is all right for women to teach men under some circumstances? When Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:12, I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent, we do not understand him to mean an absolute prohibition of all teaching by women. Paul instructs the older women to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women (Titus 2:3-4), and he commends the teaching that Eunice and Lois gave to their son and grandson Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5; 3:14). Proverbs praises the ideal wife because She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue (Proverbs 31:26). Paul endorses women prophesying in church (1 Corinthians 11:5) and says that men learn by such prophesying (1 63

9 Corinthians 14:31) and that the members (presumably men and women) should teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (Colossians 3:16). Then, of course, there is Priscilla at Aquila s side correcting Apollos (Acts 18:26). It is arbitrary to think that Paul had every form of teaching in mind in 1 Timothy 2:12. Teaching and learning are such broad terms that it is impossible that women not teach men and men not learn from women in some sense. There is a way that nature teaches (1 Corinthians 11:14) and a fig tree teaches (Matthew 24:32) and suffering teaches (Hebrews 5:8) and human behavior teaches (1 Corinthians 4:6; 1 Peter 3:1). If Paul did not have every conceivable form of teaching and learning in mind, what did he mean? Along with the fact that the setting here is the church assembled for prayer and teaching (1 Timothy 2:8-10; 3:15), the best clue is the coupling of teaching with having authority over men. We would say that the teaching inappropriate for a woman is the teaching of men in settings or ways that dishonor the calling of men to bear the primary responsibility for teaching and leadership. This primary repsonsibility is to be carried by the pastors or elders. Therefore we think it is God s will that only men bear the responsibility for this office. 22. Can t a pastor give authorization for a woman to teach Scripture to the congregation, and then continue to exercise oversight while she teaches? It is right for all the teaching ministries of the church to meet with the approval of the guardians and overseers (=elders) of the church. However, it would be wrong for the leadership of the church to use its authority to sanction the de facto functioning of a woman as a teaching elder in the church, only without the name. In other words, there are two kinds of criteria that should be met in order for the teaching of a woman to be biblically affirmed. One is to have the endorsement of the spiritual overseers of the church (=elders). The other is to avoid contexts and kinds of teaching that put a woman in the position of functioning as the de facto spiritual shepherd of a group of men or to avoid the kind of teaching that by its very nature calls for strong, forceful pressing of men s consciences on the basis of divine authority. 23. How can you be in favor of women prophesying in church but not in favor of women being pastors and elders? Isn t prophecy at the very heart of those roles? No. The role of pastor/elder is primarily governance and teaching (1 Timothy 5:17). In the list of qualifications for elders the prophetic gift is not mentioned, but the ability to teach is (1 Timothy 3:2). In Ephesians 4:11, prophets are distinguished from pastorteachers. And even though men learn from prophecies that women give, Paul distinguishes the gift of prophecy from the gift of teaching (Romans 12:6-7; 1 Corinthians 12:28). Women are nowhere forbidden to prophesy. Paul simply regulates the demeanor in which they prophesy so as not to compromise the principle of the spiritual leadership of men (1 Corinthians 11:5-10). Prophecy in the worship of the early church was not the kind of authoritative, infallible revelation we associate with the written prophecies of the Old Testament. 6 It was a report in human words based on a spontaneous, personal revelation from the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:30) for the purpose of edification, encouragement, consolation, conviction, and guidance (1 Corinthians 14:3, 24-25; Acts 21:4; 16:6-10). It was not necessarily free from a mixture of human error, and thus needed assessment (1 Thessalonians 5:19-20; 1 Corinthians 14:29) on the basis of the apostolic (Biblical) teaching (1 Corinthians 14:36-38; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3). Prophecy in the early church did not correspond to the sermon today or to a formal exposition of Scripture. Both women and men could stand and share what they believed God had brought to mind for the good of the church. The testing of this word and the regular teaching ministry was the 64

10 responsibility of the elder-teachers. This latter role is the one Paul assigns uniquely to men Are you saying then that you accept the freedom of women to publicly prophesy as described in Acts 2:17, 1 Corinthians 11:5, and Acts 21:9? Yes Since it says in 1 Corinthians 14:34 that women should remain silent in the churches, it doesn t seem like your position is really Biblical because of how much speaking you really do allow to women. How do you account for this straightforward prohibition of women speaking? The reason we believe Paul does not mean for women to be totally silent in the church is that in 1 Corinthians 11:5 he permits women to pray and prophesy in church: [E]very woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head. But someone may ask, Why do you choose to let 1 Corinthians 11:5 limit the meaning of 1 Corinthians 14:34 rather than the other way around? To begin our answer, we notice in both 1 Corinthians 14:35 and 1 Corinthians 11:6 that Paul s concern is for what is shameful or disgraceful for women (aischron in both verses and only here in 1 Corinthians). The issue is not whether women are competent or intelligent or wise or well-taught. The issue is how they relate to the men of the church. In 1 Corinthians 14:34 Paul speaks of submission, and in 1 Corinthians 11:3 he speaks of man as head. So the issue of shamefulness is at root an issue of doing something that would dishonor the role of the men as leaders of the congregation. If all speaking were shameful in this way, then Paul could not have condoned a woman s praying and prophesying, as he does in 1 Corinthians 11:5 precisely when the issue of shamefulness is what is at stake. But Paul shows in 1 Corinthians 11:5-16 that what is at stake is not that women are praying and prophesying in public but how they are doing it. That is, are they doing it with the dress and demeanor that signify their affirmation of the headship of the men who are called to lead the church? In a similar way we look into the context of 1 Corinthians 14:33-36 to find similar clues for the kind of speaking Paul may have in mind when he says it is shameful for a woman to speak. We notice again that the issue is not the ability or the wisdom of women to speak intelligently but how women are relating to men (hypotassestho son- let them be in submission ). Some kind of interaction is taking place that Paul thinks compromises the calling of the men to be the primary leaders of the church. Chapter 6 of this book argues in detail that the inappropriate interaction relates to the testing of prophecies referred to in 1 Corinthians 14:29. Women are taking a role here that Paul thinks is inappropriate. This is the activity in which they are to be silent.9 In other words, what Paul is calling for is not the total silence of women but a kind of involvement that signifies, in various ways, their glad affirmation of the leadership of the men God has called to be the guardians and overseers of the flock. 26. Doesn t Paul s statement that There is... neither male nor female... for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28) take away gender as a basis for distinction of roles in the church? No. Most evangelicals still agree that this text is not a warrant for homosexuality. In other words, most of us do not force Paul s neither male nor female beyond what we know from other passages he would approve. For example, we know from Romans 1:24-32 that Paul does not mean for the created order of different male and female roles to be overthrown by Galatians 3:28. The context of Galatians 3:28 makes abundantly clear the sense in which men and women are equal in Christ: they are equally justified by faith (v. 24), equally free from the bondage of legalism (v. 25), equally children of God (v. 26), equally clothed with 65

11 Christ (v. 27), equally possessed by Christ (v. 29), and equally heirs of the promises to Abraham (v. 29). This last blessing is especially significant, namely, the equality of being a fellow-heir with men of the promises. In 1 Peter 3:1-7, the blessing of being joint heirs of the gracious gift of life is connected with the exhortation for women to submit to their husbands (v. 1) and for their husbands to treat their wives with respect as the weaker partner. In other words, Peter saw no conflict between the neither-male-nor-female principle regarding our inheritance and the headship-submission principle regarding our roles. Galatians 3:28 does not abolish gender-based roles established by God and redeemed by Christ. 27. How do you explain God s apparent endorsement of women in the Old Testament who had prophetic or leadership roles? First, we keep in mind that God has no antipathy toward revealing His will to women. Nor does He pronounce them unreliable messengers. The differentiation of roles for men and women in ministry is rooted not in women s incompetence to receive or transmit truth, but in the primary responsibility of men in God s order to lead and teach. The instances of women who prophesied and led do not call this order into question. Rather, there are pointers in each case that the women followed their unusual paths in a way that endorsed and honored the usual leadership of men, or indicted their failures to lead. For example, Miriam, the prophetess, focused her ministry, as far as we can tell, on the women of Israel (Exodus 15:20). Deborah, a prophetess, judge, and mother in Israel (Judges 4:4; 5:7), along with Jael (Judges 5:24-27), was a living indictment of the weakness of Barak and other men in Israel who should have been more courageous leaders (Judges 4:9). (The period of the judges is an especially precarious foundation for building a vision of God s ideal for leadership. In those days God was not averse to bringing about states of affairs that did not conform to His revealed will in order to achieve some wise purpose [cf. Judges 14:4].) Huldah evidently exercised her prophetic gift not in a public preaching ministry but by means of private consultation (2 Kings 22:14-20). And Anna the prophetess filled her days with fasting and prayer in the temple (Luke 2:36-37). We must also keep in mind that God s granting power or revelation to a person is no sure sign that this person is an ideal model for us to follow in every respect. This is evident, for example, from the fact that some of those God blessed in the Old Testament were polygamists (e.g. Abraham and David). Not even the gift of prophecy is proof of a person s obedience and endorsement by God. As strange as this sounds, Matthew 7:22, 1 Corinthians 13:2, and 1 Samuel 19:23-24 show that this is so. Moreover, in the case of each woman referred to above we have an instance of a charismatic emergence on the scene, not an installation to the ordinary Old Testament office of priest, which was the responsibility of men. 28. Do you think women are more gullible than men? First Timothy 2:14 says, Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. Paul gives this as one of the reasons why he does not permit women to teach or have authority over a man. Historically this has usually been taken to mean that women are more gullible or deceivable than men and therefore less fit for the doctrinal oversight of the church. This may be true (see question 29). However, we are attracted to another understanding of Paul s argument. We think that Satan s main target was not Eve s peculiar gullibility (if she had one), but rather Adam s headship as the one ordained by God to be responsible for the life of the garden. Satan s subtlety is that he knew the created order God had ordained for the good of the family, and he deliberately defied it by ignoring the man and taking up his dealings with the woman. Satan put her in the position of spokesman, leader, and 66

12 defender. At that moment both the man and the woman slipped from their innocence and let themselves be drawn into a pattern of relating that to this day has proved destructive. If this is the proper understanding, then what Paul meant in 1 Timothy 2:14 was this: Adam was not deceived (that is, Adam was not approached by the deceiver and did not carry on direct dealings with the deceiver), but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor (that is, she was the one who took up dealings with the deceiver and was led through her direct interaction with him into deception and transgression). In this case, the main point is not that the man is undeceivable or that the woman is more deceivable; the point is that when God s order of leadership is repudiated it brings damage and ruin. Men and women are both more vulnerable to error and sin when they forsake the order that God has intended. 29. But it does look as if Paul really thought Eve was somehow more vulnerable to deception than Adam. Wouldn t this make Paul a culpable chauvinist? No. When someone asks if women are weaker than men, or smarter than men, or more easily frightened than men, or something like that, perhaps the best way to answer is this: women are weaker in some ways and men are weaker in some ways; women are smarter in some ways and men are smarter in some ways; women are more easily frightened in some circumstances and men are more easily frightened in others. It is dangerous to put negative values on the so-called weaknesses that each of us has. God intends for all the weaknesses that characteristically belong to man to call forth and highlight woman s strengths. And God intends for all the weaknesses that characteristically belong to woman to call forth and highlight man s strengths. Even if 1 Timothy 2:14 meant that in some circumstances women are characteristically more vulnerable to deception, that would not settle anything about the equality or worth of manhood and womanhood. Boasting in either sex as superior to the other is folly. Men and women, as God created us, are different in hundreds of ways. Being created equally in the image of God means at least this: that when the so-called weakness and strength columns for manhood and for womanhood are added up, the value at the bottom is going to be the same for each. And when you take those two columns and put them on top of each other, God intends them to be the perfect complement to each other. 30. If a woman is not allowed to teach men in a regular, official way, why is it permissible for her to teach children, who are far more impressionable and defenseless? This question assumes something that we do not believe. As we said in question 21, we do not build our vision on the assumption that the Bible assigns women their role because of doctrinal or moral incompetence. The differentiation of roles for men and women in ministry is rooted not in any supposed incompetence, but in God s created order for manhood and womanhood. Since little boys do not relate to their women teachers as man to woman, the leadership dynamic ordained by God is not injured. (However, that dynamic would be injured if the pattern of our staffing and teaching communicated that Bible teaching is only women s work and not the primary responsibility of the fathers and spiritual men of the church.) 31. Aren t you guilty of a selective literalism when you say some commands in a text are permanently valid and others, like, Don t wear braided hair or Do wear a head covering, are culturally conditioned and not absolute? All of life and language is culturally conditioned. We share with all interpreters the challenge of discerning how Biblical teaching should be applied today in a very different culture. In demonstrating the permanent validity of a command, we would try to show from its context that it has roots in the nature of God, the gospel, or creation as God ordered it. We would study these things as they are unfolded throughout Scripture. In contrast, to show that the specific forms of some commands are limited to one kind of 67

13 situation or culture, 1) we seek for clues in the context that this is so; 2) we compare other Scriptures relating to the same subject to see if we are dealing with limited application or with an abiding requirement; and 3) we try to show that the cultural specificity of the command is not rooted in the nature of God, the gospel, or the created order. In the context of Paul s and Peter s teaching about how men and women relate in the church and the home, there are instructions not only about submission and leadership, but also about forms of feminine adornment. Here are the relevant verses with our literal translation: 1 Timothy 2:9-10, Likewise the women are to adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and sensibleness, not in braids and gold or pearls or expensive clothing, but, as is fitting for women who profess godliness, through good works. 1 Peter 3:3-5, Let not yours be the external adorning of braiding hair and putting on gold or wearing clothes, but the hidden person of the heart by the imperishable (jewel) of a meek and quiet spirit, which is precious before God. It would be wrong to say these commands are not relevant today. One clear, abiding teaching in them is that the focus of effort at adornment should be on good works and on the hidden person rather than on the externals of clothing and hair and jewelry. Neither is there any reason to nullify the general command to be modest and sensible, or the warning against ostentation. The only question is whether wearing braids, gold, and pearls is intrinsically sinful then and now. There is one clear indication from the context that this was not the point. Peter says, Let not yours be the external adorning of... wearing clothes. The Greek does not say fine clothes (NIV and RSV), but just wearing clothes or, as the NASB says, putting on dresses. Now we know Peter is not condemning the use of clothes. He is condemning the misuse of clothes. This suggests, then, that the same thing could be said about gold and braids. The point is not to warn against something intrinsically evil, but to warn against its misuse as an expression of self-exaltation or worldly-mindedness. Add to this that the commands concerning headship and submission are rooted in the created order (in 1 Timothy 2:13-14) while the specific forms of modesty are not. This is why we plead innocent of the charge of selective literalism. 32. But doesn t Paul argue for a head covering for women in worship by appealing to the created order in 1 Corinthians 11:13-15? Why is the head covering not binding today while the teaching concerning submission and headship is? The key question here is whether Paul is saying that creation dictates a head covering or that creation dictates that we use culturally appropriate expressions of masculinity and femininity, which just happened to be a head covering for women in that setting. We think the latter is the case. The key verses are: Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering (1 Corinthians 11:13-15). How did nature teach that long hair dishonored a man and gave women a covering? Nature has not endowed women with more hair than men. In fact, if nature takes its course, men will have more hair than women because it will cover their face as well as their head. There must be another way that nature teaches on this subject! We believe custom and nature conspire in this pedagogy. On the one hand, custom dictates what hair arrangements are generally masculine or feminine. On the other hand, nature dictates that men feel ashamed when they wear symbols of femininity. We could feel the force of this by asking the men of our churches, Does not nature teach you not to wear a dress to church? The teaching of nature is the natural inclination of men and women to feel 68